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Daniel Bolliger

Photographer

Daniel Bolliger is a photographer / creative director who grew up in Switzerland. He is currently based in Los Angeles, as well as Zurich. His artistic career so far has been shaped by a variety of vocational and advanced training courses, and he has exhibited his work in Switzerland, Germany, the USA, China, Japan and Great Britain. He received his BA degree from the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and became first assistant to the London based performance artist Franko B, which happened simultaneous to the engagement in his studies. Furthermore, he took part in a group exhibition at the NRW-Forum in conjunction with the photography class of Thomas Ruff (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf). Following further education to receive his Master‘s degree in Digital Photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York, his thesis work was nominated for the Adobe Design Achievement Award in Beijing, for which he was one of the finalist candidates. His work was featured in numerous leading publications like (Vogue Italia, Schön Magazine, Master Mind: Art Direction and visionary Photography etc.). Also, he was nominated several times for the most prestigious photo award in Switzerland “Swiss Photo Award”, for which he became a finalist for this year of 2018 as well (Swiss Photo Award 2018, category: Advertising).
Bolliger was working for Gloss Studio in NYC for several years, a leading service provider for the media industry, which has a regular customer base consisting of some of the most influential companies and global corporations. Some of his clients are “Chris Habana Jewelry NYC” (worn by Rihanna, Lady Gaga, FKA Twigs etc.), and “Ashton Michael” (custom Fashion Designer for Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Usher etc.). Also, Bolliger worked with commercial high-end clients like “IWC Schaffhausen”, were he shot the latest campaign with the Formula-1 World Champion’s Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
During his university years, his professors were never sure how to categorize Bolliger’s artistic style. They could not decide between his work as being commercial photography, or more towards fine art. In the end, Bolliger decided that his unique style is his handwriting and does not want, nor need to be categorized. Ever since, he is pushing advertising to the next level, which he accomplishes with his uniqueness in addition to working with highly authentic people and inspirations.
His trade mark is that the models’ gender identity disappears in many of his works and thus plays a subordinate role. He understands this visual escape away from gender roles as a stylistic device to cause subtle confusion in the eye of the beholder. Even though the results may be very different, the pictures all carry this distinct signature: A pronounced sensuality as an inherent part. Another crucial feature are grace and beauty. In many scenarios, the elegance of his models is based on the distinctive features of their physique. Regarding people, he has always been fascinated by this concept, which is a deviation of what most observers would perceive as the norm or even the ideal.